What's your one weakness you want to strengthen?

[Amanda Bancroft]

@JoshuaDages cool, it's nice to know others here consider SVS the most formal education they've had - me too! No art school. Style is really difficult for me, too. We're in good company!

[jsnzart]

@chrisaakins I want to work on my story telling too. And I think we're in the right place to learn how to do that.

@JoshuaDages Me too, I am around 70 something percent self taught,...giving credit to hundreds of YouTube videos by awesome generous artists, and many many books.
Yes, we can learn a lot here. And it's enjoyable too.

@Francisco-Varela You're welcome. I like that course, and completed it. However, every now and then, I will go back to it to brush things up.

@Amanda-Bancroft Finished is good.
Sounds good.
And did you try using thinner lines for bg elements, and thicker for the foreground elements?

If anyone has useful tips/advice like, which course/s to take, please go for it.

[arielg]

lol. just about everything is my weakness.
all the foundations.
anatomy. perspective. shadowing. color. composition. storyboarding. the only thing i think i am strong is my ideas. technique and sitting and making the time instead of indulging myself in my rare spare time, is not a habit yet. but its about 30-40% there.

[VeronicaMui]

Such interesting comments! One of my weaknesses is that I rely TOO much on reference! I don’t want my art to look too realistic, but I am never satisfied with characters that don’t look ‘right’ to me. I started in fine art in traditional realism and built a box around myself where I believed I was only able to create realism. The word ‘talent’ has been a crutch for me where I’ve just leaned on what I was already able to do and ignored the work to get better in other areas by telling myself I just wasn’t able to do that! Silly. Anyone can learn and improve! So I’m trying to smash my loves together to create a style that I’m happy with and comfortable in with a mix of realism for the characters and more loose and conceptual for the backgrounds. I am also really not good at visualizing images before I start, design, backgrounds...So much to learn I need so much help

[burvantill]

@LauraA @jsnzart
Regarding classes. If an instructor of a class started a thread for the class they are more likely to respond if you post your work there because they would be alerted to it.

[jsnzart]

@burvantill Understood. Thank you very much.

[Elliot]

Something I'm going to be actively working on until I feel like I have a handle on it is pushing shadows. I don't have a problem with highlights or midtones, but my shadows are never dark enough and my pieces tend to look kind of blah or muddy because of it.

[Mary Toth]

One weakness I have is figure drawing which I feel I am slowly improving on. Another weakness is dramatic lighting which I still have a long way to go on. I love the podcasts and forum here as well as the classes of course but since I work mainly traditionally some of the classes don't apply so well with my process. I feel that most are more applicable to digital illustrating which is fine since I still learn from them! But lighting techniques for example are so different when working in watercolor versus in Photoshop because one is a subtractive process and the other is additive. I'd love to see more classes on traditional media here at SVS though especially since Will, Jake, and Lee all seem to be pros in traditional media too.

[jsnzart]

@arielg I would like to work on all of those things for myself. Drawing more, and learning more.
I am still working on foundations.

Sometimes I wish I had better ideas.
But, when I get into it, and draw a lot of thumbnails focusing on one main idea/character/subject, I find new ideas coming.

@VeronicaMui I need help too.
And I love realism! Love details! I love drawing like that on paper, lots of fine details, with pencil or ballpoint pen.
And now I'm trying to change my style to suit digital tools, and be more stylized, especially with colour and environments.
More work needs to be done!

@Elliot Did you try that course Light and Shadows for Illustrators by @Lee-White ?
And there's another one Lighting for Storytelling. I will definitely be looking at that.

@Mary-Toth Me too. More on traditional media.
Did you try Figure Drawing Fundamentals?

I just found a new weakness, especially with digital painting. I must stop painting soft edges, and learn what to do instead. Anyone know of a good course to help me strengthen that weakness?

[korilynneillo]

I've been actively working on my human figures! Grown ups and kids are LEAGUES behind my animals in skill level, and I'm focusing really hard on exploring ways to simplify the human form in a style that matches my animals. It takes me at least three times the amount of time to do a human than it does for most of the animal kingdom and it's starting to feel very limiting!

[chrisaakins]

@korilynneillo I feel ya. For some weird reason I can draw animals with ease. (Except horses, they are my bane) and I can draw people from references well, but drawing figures without references, they always look off to me for some reason.

[ajillustrates]

I can't decide between two weakeness that I want to strengthen, so I'll just list both.

• Drawing mechanical/robotic tech straight out of my head.
• Speeding up my digital painting/coloring process.

I'm working to address both through my Inktober 52 project. The series centers on animals using technology to solve their problems, so most weeks require me to come up with some ridiculous contraption. Once they're all drawn, I'll get the ink lines in Photoshop and really hone in my digital coloring process, setting my prefered color palette, and increasing my speed once I'm not making things up as I go, project to project.

[PhoebeCreates]

I'm quite new at art, having only been doing it for 2 years. So at this point, I can probably say that everything is my weakness...One of my biggest "weakness" is definitely characters, but I only started learning to draw the human figure since October last year... so can you really categorize being new at something a "weakness"?

I feel that context matters a lot when we think about our " weakness", often the "weakness" is something we practice a lot less, perhaps we are just starting to learn this subject, perhaps we are not too interested in it in the past, or perhaps we avoided practising it because we believe that we are not good at it for whatever reasons. Personally, it is more important for me to understand why I'm weaker at somethings than to know what the thing is. It has helped me to understand myself more as a creative person and avoided beating myself up for the wrong reasons.

For example, I am not good at drawing robots, and I know that's because I am not incredibly interested in robots as a subject at this point in time so I haven't put much work into it. I can save myself from the endless self-loathing and negative feelings derived from comparing my crappy robot drawings to other people's "better robots", and focus my energy on other subjects that I am more interested in. As long as I don't develop a bad feeling and negative belief about my ability to draw robots, I know that I'm leaving the door open for the future when I do become interested in the subject and want to improve on it.

Another example is that I find myself focusing too much on the details, accuracy and rendering, unable to simplify what I'm seeing. At one point I grew frustrated with my art and disliked everything I was doing. After a long and hard search for answers to why I do what I do, I come to realise that it's really common for beginner artists of my age and experience to start out this way. When I was a child I saw the world in a very simplistic way, and now as an adult, I see and experience the complexity in the world and all the details in it. It reflected in the art I'm making, naturally, because I have not had any previous training, therefore lack the skills to simplify what I'm seeing. So while it is not where I want to go in terms of art-making, it is not a bad thing. This kind of mental clarity was much needed for me to get over my frustration, fall in love with making art again and really learning and developing my skills in simplifying the world on paper.

I apologise for the long rambling...Personally, I've seen a lot of developing artist grow to believe that they're "weak" at something, but really they're either really new to it, haven't actively worked on the skills involved enough, or simply not that interested in the subject to begin with, but for whatever reason, perhaps by comparing themselves to those who are more skilled at that thing, they form a negative belief about their ability to do that thing. I feel that it can be quite damaging to think this way, often, our beliefs are what's stopping us from becoming a better artist, creator .... ( insert whatever), not our abilities.

So instead of saying what my weakness is, I will just state what I am going to work on:

• Characters, I followed the "Intro to character design" course back in June and the course started me on my way to get out of focusing too much on accuracy. Now a few months have past and I am definitely a bit loser on my approach to drawing characters and can probably benefit more from rewatching the course and any other related courses, and dive deeper into the world of character design.

• Developing a style. This is something I am really interested in doing, and will certainly take a long time. Lee's course offered some much-needed direction so now I feel that I am prepared for the long journey.

[jsnzart]

@korilynneillo It sounds like you've had a lot more practise/experience drawing animals than humans. It will take some time, and I recommend all of the courses here that have human figures in them. Starting from the basics, and definitely the figure drawing and gesture drawing courses.
Then there's courses like, Posing Characters. I liked it, and I'll be doing it again soon.

@chrisaakins Same as above. Just keep drawing!

@ajillustrates Have you ever watched vids from Feng Zhu? If not, find his channel FZD School. There's over 100 vids to choose from, but if you type " fzd robots and mecha ", you'll find some. Grab a drink and snacks, or some drawing tools, and watch him draw from scratch.
I am also working on speeding up my process.

@PhoebeCreates No, I wouldn't categorize being new at something as a weakness. Actually, I don't like using that word, weakness. I'm sure somebody called it something else, recently. Was it Will?
My apologies to everyone! I don't mean to sound negative.

Anyway, turning something into a positive is a much better idea.
Until we find a better word, we can call it, "something I'm working on", or something along those lines.
Actually, I think you said it!

I'm sure everybody can draw anything they want, in their own way/style. And then, draw that same thing again(no values or colour), but polishing up the lines. By then, we might see things we changed or want to change. Keep drawing the same thing if you want. Or if you're happy with it, try something else.

Yeah, keep getting into character design. Check out other peoples characters online.
We are allowed to emulate any artist. And then add our own spin on it.
We can go much deeper into this topic.

Yep, I have been researching and learning about style for about 20 yrs. And now I know I have a handful of styles that I can work comfortably in, with confidence. But, choosing which style to fill my portfolio with, is and has been a real headache.

For me, I don't need a portfolio for event work. I mean, realistic quick portraits, and silhouettes. My friends handle that for me. And covid-19 took everything away from us, for now.
The caricatures you see on my Artstation take more than 20 hours each, and I think the market is getting smaller.
I have a couple of styles that are better(I think) for the huge children's art market. So, I am nearly done with making a big decision.

Keep on drawing!